Re: High-Tech, Please Define.

[Doug Farris <heirloom@moscow.com>]

Dear BL,

In today's v-2020 you said:

"I think it's time to stop this slide.  Let's tighten up the rules to
make this high-tech park what it was designed to be.  If we fill it up
with offices, we won't have it if a real high-tech business wants to
locate here."

You ask to "tighten up the rules" to keep High-tech, High-tech! Would
you call making little plastic widgets with expensive computer modeling
programs "high-tech" or "LOW tech"? Is it the end use of the product,
say in a space shuttle, the value of high or low tech?

At what standard do we place the line between high and low tech? Is it
the cost of the machinery or the use of "experts" (professionals) the
higher standard? Are you calling what I do "low tech" because I only use
a computer to do my drawings and billings with and not operate some
robot to do the work for me? (I do electrical contracting)

I suppose you would call a "High-tech" phone calling center a good
thing. Or even a petro-chemical refinery, I here they use a lot of
expensive computer controlled devices that have to be programmed by
highly educated control device programers on expensive computers.....

How can you discriminate against me for my seeming lack of upper level
math skills? So what if I'm not "gifted and talented"? So what if I AM
"wiz-bang" disabled I still count as a person. As are all the other
"disabled" lawyers, doctors, dentists, accountants, stock brokers, and
even professional writers. (my wife feels discriminated against this
one) How did you become the diviner of what standard is High-Tech and
what deficiencies qualify some skill as "Low-Tech"

I thought this was a free country and that the tax money I give may be
used exclusively by my representatives to allow equal access to public
funded business parks for all underprivileged "school to work"
graduates.

I hear you say " I just do not want my tax money supporting a stock
broker's move out of downtown." Isn't that a little like me saying "I
just do not want my tax money supporting a public school child's move to
second grade".

What's egalitarian for the high tech goose is equal for the educating of
the gander.

I hope you get my point and that you see that you feel much the same as
I do....

lemeno Doug!